


The Subconscious Is the Mourner's Worst Enemy

by NoisyNoiverns



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 10:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7973530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The worst part of loss is what comes next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Subconscious Is the Mourner's Worst Enemy

Valis loved Desolas’s eyes.

They were nearly the exact blue of his markings, fading to pale gray around the edges. He’d told her that, since he was albino, doctors had injected pigmentation into his eyes in infancy to protect them from too-harsh sunlight that otherwise would have blinded him, and it was slowly fading with age. The effect was downright hypnotizing. When she looked at his eyes, he could have told her up was down and turians could go vegetarian, and she would have believed him.

So having them so close they took up nearly all of her field of vision was a little overwhelming, to say the least.

Not that she minded. Not that she minded one bit.

“Have I ever told you,” he was saying, “that your nasal plates have the most beautiful shape to them?”

“I didn’t know you ever looked at my nose,” she hummed, trying her best to speak around the breath caught in her throat.

“Every now and then,” he admitted. “When I woke up before you did and didn’t want to disturb you by getting up.”

“How courteous,” she breathed, closing her eyes and letting her head sink forward until her brow was pressed against his nasal plates, his head supporting her more than her own neck. “So you committed my face to memory instead.”

His subvocals thrummed through her chest, amused and gently reassuring and pleased all at once. “Sometimes, yes. Other times, I did something a bit more like this.” He wrapped one arm around her chest, then slid his hand down her spine to rest at the small of her back and pull their hips together. His head moved to slide over hers and tuck her face into the base of his neck, and their keels touched briefly before brushing past and locking comfortably together. “And then I’d go back to sleep,” he murmured against her spinal plates, mandibles slowly moving in and out and brushing against her skin.

She pushed her face closer against his beating pulse, nipping there gently enough to be affectionate rather than reprimanding. “Spirits, where have you been?” she asked. “I’ve missed you so much…”

“I know,” he whispered, subvocals humming with sorrow. “I’m sorry.”

She wrapped her arms loosely around his waist, struggling to keep a mournful cry down in her throat. “When are you coming back? You promised you’d come back.”

“Val,” he said, and the quaver in his voice said he was trying not to cry jut as much as she was. “Val, you know I… Val, I’m so sorry.”

She nearly swallowed her tongue and whipped her head up and back to look at him, feeling her mandibles go slack and her limbs grow heavy. “Desolas,” she said, and she was a bit ashamed of the pleading in her subvocals. “Desolas, wait.”

He was already fading, but he grabbed her arms and pulled her in close, pressing their maxillary plates together in a kiss that felt too sad, too desperate to be enjoyable. His subvocals roared in her chest now, crying his apology and despair and beg for forgiveness.

Valis’s eyes snapped open, and before she could realize what had happened her arm flashed out to grasp at empty blankets and barren pillow.

She didn’t need the nerves in her hand to tell her what they’d found. She slowly sat up, heart in her throat as her bad leg protested the unwanted movement. She stared at her hands for a moment, bracing herself, then slowly reached over to the nightstand, taking the frame waiting for her without looking.

Desolas’s bars, the ones he’d proudly worn on his dress uniform that night he’d invited her along to see him awarded a medal for courage and dedication to the Empire and then danced the night away with her, winked up at her from their final resting place in the little case the higher-ups had placed them in. They’d initially gone to Saren, but he’d gifted them to her after a week. Poor kid hadn’t been able to stand the heartbreak of having to be reminded his brother was never coming back.

She wasn’t quite sure she could stand it, either, but she appreciated the gesture.

Sliding one talon into the frame, she delicately pried the cover off, then let the cry she’d been holding back bubble up and out as she traced the ribbons with a shaking claw.

**Author's Note:**

> do you see why i prefer to write these two with a no-reapers au. do you


End file.
